NEW DELHI (TIP): The Congress-led Opposition feels it has found an ‘inclusive narrative’ against the government in the looming economic slowdown, after highlighting issues such as ‘lynching’ and ‘intolerance’ in the last two years.

As the government works on providing stimulus to boost the economy, the Opposition camp calculates that highlighting against the economic slowdown and its potential social and economic fallout will cut across divisions — poor, jobless youth, distressed farmers, unhappy middle class, traders, small & medium enterprises and industry — and give it a pan-India plank that has minimum ‘polarising’ risk while it questions the Modi government’s development record.

Over the past few days, senior Congress leaders have reached out to leaders of like-minded Opposition parties, informally discussing ways to convert ‘economic distress’ into a new collective plank along with ‘social distress’, that a 16-party national committee is pursuing in various parts of the country by holding ‘save our composite culture’ stirs.

Congress insiders said, the Opposition will hold a joint meeting to announce an agitation to highlight ‘economic mismanagement’, ‘flawed development model’ and demand solutions. Soon after the RBI data on demonetised currency was out, ET had reported Congress president Sonia Gandhi could call a meeting of Opposition parties to work out a strategy to highlight the government’s ‘betrayal’.

The analysis given to the Congress leadership by in-house experts such as Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and Anand Sharma predicts further trouble for the economy. These parties think after demonetisation, the heralding economic slowdown along with teething problems can pose the biggest challenge to the regime. “The painful fallouts of economic slowdown have turned off those social segments, the youth, middle-class, traders and industry which had intensely rallied behind the BJP during the 2014 polls,” said an AICC functionary.

Source: TOI